The latest installment in the Diablo game series has become the fastest selling PC game in history

Blizzard Entertainment today proudly announced that the Diablo III video game racked up 3.5 million units sold in the first 24 hours, and added to that tally through the first week.

After the first week, more than 6.3 million gamers are now playing Diablo III, still excluding Korean gamers playing Diablo III at Internet cafes. That number also doesn't include 1.2M gamers that received Diablo III for free when they signed up for a one-year subscription to World of Warcraft.

Meanwhile, Diablo III sales are expected to creep up in the weeks to come, as casual RPG gamers enter the mix.

"We're definitely thrilled that so many people around the world were excited to pick up their copy of Diablo III and jump in the moment it went live," said Mike Morhaime, Blizzard CEO and co-founder, in a press statement. "We also regret that our preparations were not enough to ensure everyone had a seamless experience when they did so. I want to reaffirm our commitment to make sure the millions of Diablo III players out there have a great experience with the game moving forward, and I also want to thank them for their ongoing support."

More than 8,000 retailers worldwide offered the game in North America, Europe, South Korea, Australia, and other parts of the world -- and digital downloads were available in the same markets, plus a handful of other locations.

The Diablo game trilogy, plus expansions and later modifications, have proven to be some of the most popular RPG video games ever. Diablo II launched in the summer of 2000, and generated 4M units sold in the first year.

Everything seems to be looking up for Blizzard, even though there are early reports of game account theft and related problems. Since Diablo III has a feature such as the real money auction house, so players can earn real money, and now there is a question of account theft and fraud. Forbes recently published an article related to Diablo III hacking, and whether people have traditionally been prosecuted for digital game theft.

Blizzard can look forward to other problems popping up here and there, but with the support of millions of gamers, should be able to handle any bumps in the road.

Well, since i haven't isolated myself enough from society yet, guess i'll be the one to say it:

For the time being, PC gaming is dead. People have lost the ability to see what great games are. Which means games are slowly going to deteriorate into nothing more then scams to extort as much money as possible from the consumer.

Diablo 3 is "allright". If it had been released a decade ago and wasn't a blizzard game (so not counting graphics and blizzard fan hype) it would've been a 7/10 tops probably even a 6/10. The actual game mechanics are... mjeh.

I've been playing mages in every game that had them since i was old enough to handle a keyboard. And when i look at the D3 wizard footage, i see a click and hold spell (elecricity), a AoE target spell (that orb), a laser pointer (freeze ray) and an AoE freeze (frost nova). Those are the most used spells by everybody so far, by far.

None of those require any skill to aim. The electricity spell speaks for itself, it'll just find targets on it's own. The orb has the largest hitbox i've ever seen in a RPG. The AoE freeze isn't overpowered or anything for a glass cannon. Instant get out of jail free card. And the freeze ray? "Point and shoot, and the ability will point where you're shooting!". It's impossible to not aim it accuratly.

Others spells likes meteor and blizzard follow the exact same pattern: AoE, and reduced skill in aiming due to AoE. As i remember diablo 2 (though i never was a fan of that either), it was aim, shoot, get out of the way. D3 is just Shoot and get out of the way if they get close. Because monsters either bunch up and follow you like idiots, or because there are so many monsters and so many players with AoE that it's one giant clusterfuck of explosions.

It's basically devolved into a point and click adventure, something to do while chatting with your friends and farming blizzard some goddamned money! Nothing costs skill anymore, only time. As demonstrated by the new cow level (i've seen footage on youtube, with the explanation to get it. the summoning staff is super rare because the drops it's crafted out of are super rare. I've heard nobody say those rare spawns where actually hard to kill, just one mention that it took 400 runs for the guy who did it to get the rare *to* spawn.

Not that this hasn't been happening for years. The acceptance for DLC was the first step, one i vigerously opposed as well. The "pay only for what you want" model basically means "pay the same amount of money for alot less content". Economics 101: if you can sell the same item in pieces instead of whole, it's worth alot more.

While i can get diablo 3 for 50 bucks and the entirety of it's content, that same amount of money will get me ~5 skins in most "free to play" MMO's. And that's not even counting the completly virtual stuff like XP boosts, and now, legalised gear sales.

Gambling is also being widely accepted. Cardassian lock boxes in STO (they *can* drop a ship or a duty officer pack worth 220CP, but the keys cost 100CP), card trade ins for stronghold kingdoms (card packs with random cards and a trade in system which litteraly has a slot machine that determines if you get bonus swap points), TF2 item boxes (the original). There's probably more i haven't even seen.

And of course, not recognising shit due to marketing is nothing new. Diablo 3 is to RPGs what Modern Warfare 3 is to FPSs.

Maybe i sound incredibly pessimistic. It's because i am. But just to put it into terms non gamers can understand: It's like growing up on pure Aerosmith and ACDC, then being forced to see justin bieber become bigger then they ever where, forming the basis for a whole new generation's standard of "good", which was last generation's "crap" (i was going to say mediocre but no it's worse). Just like music's dead, PC gaming is dead. Just another corperate zombie.

(yes there are still great indie games, but in order for most of them to get greenlit they need investors, which they won't have if the triple A market for games is crashing. Which it eventually will since casuals never stick).

I agree with that PC gaming is dead but only from mainstream companies like Blizzard,Bioware just look at games on Kickstarter most of these games are overwhelmingly surpassing simplified console games in fun and longevity and theres at least shred of innovation in them same cannot be said about Call of Duty 18 Prehistoric Warfare with club as DLC

Music isn't dead, it is alive an well--at least, if you look in the right place. Beeber (who cares how is name is spelled) and the like don't count as music. They're hogwash.

No, what I'm talking about is real independent music. I hear at least one artist a week that I like on my local indie radio station (biggest in the country). Check it out, you can listen to it online even.

WRAS 88.5 in Atlanta (Google it) All independent, all the time and lots of good stuff. I left the grid a while ago and I don't miss it at all. :)